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Richard Blum

T. J. Higgins, S.J., Chair in Philosophy (emeritus)
Dr. Blum

List of Publications 
Renaissance Philosophy Blog  
Philosophy of Existence and Anthropology Blog

Education

  • 2002-2019 T. J. Higgins, S.J., Chair in Philosophy, Loyola University Maryland
  • 1996-2002 Professor of Philosophy at Péter Pázmány Catholic University Budapest (Hungary)
  • 1994 Habilitation in Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany)
  • 1982-1989 Assistant at the Institute for Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin (Prof. Karlfried Gründer and Prof. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann)
  • 1979-1981 Assistant at the Institute for Classical Philology at Freie Universität Berlin 
  • 1976-1979 Teacher at Munich university
  • 1978 Dr. phil. with a doctoral thesis on Giordano Bruno, Munich university
  • 1974 State's examination (graduation equivalent to MA) with a thesis on Wolfram von Eschenbach, Freiburg

Courses Taught

  • PL 201: Foundations of Philosophy
  • PL 202: Philosophical Perspectives – The Project of Modernity
  • PL 397: Philosophy of Mind
  • HN 260: Honors: Renaissance to Modernity
  • PL 355: Philosophy of History
  • PL 364: Renaissance Philosophy 
  • PL 399: Anthropology of Slavery

Publications

Books

  • Nicholas of Cusa on Peace, Religion, and Wisdom in Renaissance Context. Regensburg (Roderer), 2018.
  • Georgios Gemistos Plethon. The Byzantine and the Latin Renaissance. Co-edited with Jozef Matula, Olomouc (Univerzita Palackého) 2014.
  • Francesco Patrizi. Philosopher of the Renaissance. Co-edited with Tomáš Nejeschleba, Olomouc (Univerzita Palackého) 2014.
  • Giordano Bruno Teaches Aristotle, Nordhausen (Bautz) 2016.
  • Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism, Leiden (Brill) 2012 
  • Giordano Bruno: An Introduction, Amsterdam/New York (Rodopi) 2012
  • Philosophy of Religion in the Renaissance, Farnham (Ashgate) 2010.
  • Philosophers of the Renaissance, Washington (Catholic University of America Press) 2010.
  • Soldier or Scholar: Stratocles or War by Jacobus Pontanus. Edited together with Thomas D. McCreight. Baltimore (Apprentice House) 2009. Translated and with contributions by Students of Loyola University Maryland
  • Philosophenphilosophie und Schulphilosophie - Typen des Philosophierens in der Neuzeit, Wiesbaden (Steiner) 1998 (Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 27).

Papers

  • In fugam vacui – Avoiding the Void in Baroque Thought, in Quaestio 17 (2017) 427-460.
  • The Economy of Slavery in Campanella’s Political Thought, in Bruniana & Campanelliana 23 (2017) 563-572.
  • Humanism and Thomism: Doctrines, Schools, and Methods, in Divus Thomas 120, 2 (2017) 13-20.
  • Ludovico Beccadelli: Philology Safeguards the Unity of Truth, in Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 64 (2017) 82-87.
  • The Analogy of Divine Creation in Raymond Lull and Nicholas of Cusa, in Archivio di Filosofia 84 (2016) [actually 2017] 117-128.
  • The Nature of Wisdom and the Love of God, in Henrik Lagerlund and Benjamin Hill (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth-Century Philosophy. New York/London: Routledge, 2017, 614-632.
  • American Slave Narratives as Sources of Philosophical Anthropology. Turning First Person Stories into Philosophy. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Registers of Philosophy 2016/7.
  • Robots, Slaves, and the Paradox of the Human Condition in Isaac Asimov’s Robot Stories. Annals of Cultural Studies (Roczniki Kulturoznawcze), 7:3 (2016) 5-24.
  • Nicholas of Cusa in Giles Randall's English Translation: Wisdom and Vision in Language. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 83(1) (2016) 201-219.
  • How to Think with the Head of Another? The Historical Dimension of Philosophical Problems, in Intellectual History Review 26, no. 1 (2016): 153-161. 
  • Psychology and Culture of the Intellect: Ignatius of Loyola and Antonio Possevino, in Daniel Heider, ed., Cognitive Psychology in Early Jesuit Scholasticism, Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Editiones Scholasticae, 2016, 12-37.
  • “I Felt so Tall Within”—Anthropology in Slave Narratives, in Annals of Cultural Studies (Roczniki Kulturoznawcze), 4:2 (2013) 21-39.

Areas of Specialization

  • History of Philosophy
  • Philosophy in the Renaissance
  • Jesuit and Modern Scholastic Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Nature
  • Philosophy of History
  • Philosophical Anthropology of Slavery

Member of:

  • American Catholic Philosophical Association
  • American Philosophical Association (2006-2008 member of Committee International Cooperation)
  • Cosmos & Creation (Co-director)
  • Deutsch-Ungarische Philosophische Gesellschaft
  • International Society for Intellectual History
  • Pontifical Academy St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Corresponding Member 
  • Renaissance Society of America
  • Società Internazionale San Tommaso d’Aquino (SITA; founding member and 1st president of the Hungarian branch) 
  • Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
  • Ungarische Goethe Gesellschaft